A blog on the natural state of being-awareness by Nathan Spoon. If you assume that you are a someone, this someone is only a pretending character. Direct investigation right here and now can reveal that this character has no actual basis or existence within this which presently and always IS.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Yes. It exists as an arising within your own being. Your being is more than your seemingly individual and self-conscious self. Your being is simple awareness. Your eyes see even without a separate someone trying to make them see. And likewise your ears hear, your nose smells, your fingers touch, and your tongue tastes. You have a vast panorama of physical sensations, emotions and thoughts and they all happen quite naturally. They all simply arise.

Only a pretending "I" tries to arrange thoughts or do things. This "I" is similar to a gnat perched on a steering wheel. The greater power of life steers left and the gnat is very pleased with itself. But then life steers to the right and the "I" is displeased and displeased again when it unexpectedly steers left again. The trouble is not with the way life is flowing. The trouble is imagined trouble that is the result of the gnat assuming that it has control.

So you can simply recognize that any control is imagined. You don't have any control because you don't need to have any control. This life IS already your own being and so the world that arises in it is your world and is you.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

I understand the things you are saying intellectually. However I haven't gotten it in experience. I want to be in that state all of the time.

You already are. That is why it is called the natural state. I never ask you to find something or to attain anything new. The natural state is not anything that you can or will discover or attain. It is that ever-present ease of being. You can not be away from it.

Then why don't I feel at ease?

Who says that you don't already?

The ease of your own being has to be ever-present. Otherwise you would not be able to come to your seeming dis-ease. Don't worry about these feelings. Whenever they come up just watch them. What comes always goes, yet this that is spontaneously remains. And this is being-awareness, which is only you.

No. You are the you that you already are. There is no discovering this--except as a matter of speaking.

And yes. If you think you are someone separate you may be helped (again as a matter of speaking) to consider the words of a guru who is at rest in his or her own natural state--who makes no effort to become someone or something.

This absence of effort is similar to the way a magnet magnetizes all the iron around it or the way a black hole turns everything into itself. Only there is a difference in that the guru is turning you into the you that you already are.

***

It is common think that the guru is separate (albeit enlightened) and that I am separate (and unenlightened). However this is not the case. The guru is only the light of pure being and that light is your own. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj once referred to the outer guru as a milestone and explained that the inner teacher will walk with you to the goal as it is the goal.

You may meet an outer teacher. Or you may not. If you do meet one you will finally have to break free of that person by looking to the light of your own natural being.

What makes the lasting difference does not happen without. It happens within.

Oh, you don't. Don't deal with them. Whenever some feelings come up you might simply watch them come and then watch them go. You are always the pure awareness that any feelings arise in. That awareness that you already are has no boundary--so there is plenty of room for everything to be watched--and not only feelings. Thoughts too. And physical experiences like a headache or a sore back. Don't "deal with"; watch.

***

I used to party a lot. I don't anymore--only I still think about it sometimes and I am tempted.

You still do what sometimes?

Think about it. (Laughs.)

Yes. You can laugh at thoughts. They don't bite. If you laugh at them they might even stop barking. But even if they continue barking they are only an occasion for you to laugh.

And I do not mean only out loud. The way to laugh at thoughts is to look into the simple fact of your own being-awareness. It always comes back to this. You are the you that you already are. Awareness. You don't have to do anything or change anything within yourself. Just laugh over what arises.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Your thought of being separate is just thought! What is ego? Ego is only a word. Leave ego out of it.

Then do I not need to get rid of my ego?

What is that question you just asked? That question is only a thought. Your assumption of being someone separate and having a thing called an ego that you then need to get rid of is also nothing but thoughts. Look to the being-awareness that your thoughts are arising in. You are already firmly established as that being-awareness. You can not tell me that you are not.

I had a big breakthrough as I was thinking about how you said that I am being-awareness. I realized that I always thought of Christ-consciousness as something buried inside myself, when Christ-consciousness is really just the awareness that I already am.

Yes. This is the plainest fact. In it there is nothing to realize. "Realizations" are only more of the content--more of what is arising IN this awareness. They are no trouble, of course, AND they are not you.

I also realized that the being-awareness that I am is not different from the being-awareness of anyone else.

All of the classic sages have expressed this--including Jesus. It is only within the pretending character that there would seem to be some difference. Within the pure awareness it is just the difference of one body or another or another and one mind or another or another. These are arising in the awareness and there is not difference in that.

The awareness is spontaneously and naturally aware without being self-conscious.

Thank you for pointing this out. It really helps a lot.

It is only within the pure awareness that awareness returns to itself. That is not anything at all. It is simply the end of extraneous imagining.

You are the you that you already are. Simple and natural being-awareness.

So maybe you can help me with a problem I am having? I am angry a lot and I have a lot of guilt about it. I realize that guilt and anger are only an illusion, but still I am having trouble.

Don't look at your thoughts or feelings. Look to the simple fact of your own being-awareness. Before you can feel angry that light of your own natural being is already on. And nothing obscures this. This light is the you that you already are. See that you are never the anger and never the guilt; these only arise sometimes and pass away. They have nothing to do with you.

So you are saying that I am identifying with thoughts and that that is not who I am?

Yes. Seemingly you are entangling with thoughts. Only if you look right now you see that thoughts are mere arisings in the being-awareness. That simple awareness is you. Everything that you can experience happens in it. It has to be first before anything else can be. So everything depends on this being-awareness.

Eckhart Tolle says that one should simply watch what is happening without trying to change anything.

This is a simple practice that you may find helpful--to simply witness what is coming up. The pure awareness that you are is the space within which anything that arises appears and then passes on. Nothing but the awareness is permanent.

So all I have to do is remember to do that.

You are not doing anything. It's more simple than that. The light of your being is always on.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

You are the you that you already are. Regardless of how the pretending character of "I am" is seemingly entangling with what is arising, and all the while feeling and thinking that something is missing, something is incomplete--you can not and will not ever "get to" yourself. You can not and will not ever "find" yourself. There is nothing to find outside of your own being-awareness and there is no separate someone within that being-awareness.

It is almost difficult to imagine how any person could even make such an assumption, when right here and now, all that there is--is this.

There is no "who" or "what" or "where" to this. This never happens as someTHING.

"What is this?" Who wants to know? Not this. This has no need of knowing. This is knowing-ness itself.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

"If one analyzes oneself, one doesn't find any such thing as 'I'. Take an onion, for instance. First of all you peel off the red outer skin; then you find thick white skins. Peel these off one after the other and you won't find anything inside."

***

"All trouble and botheration come to an end when the 'I' dies. You may indulge in thousands of reasonings but still the 'I' does not disappear. For people like you and me it is good to have the feeling, 'I am a lover of God.'"

--Sri Ramakrishna

***

Sri Ramakrishna was a great jnani (knower) to be able to point to the natural state in all the ways that he did. AND he was also a great bhakta (lover), as he often sang songs and prayed to God as Mother and he would usually guide aspirants to increase their own love for God.

***

Advaita begins where it ends. It begins by pointing to the simple fact of the natural state of pure being, pure awareness--which is the "not-two" of atman, or being-awareness as a person, and brahman, or being-awareness as infinity, as these are as they are already. And so one quite literally has nothing to attain. You are the you that you already are. And that is that.

This is the way of knowledge.

***

The way of love takes a different starting point. It is a point A to point B course, as firstly the existence of "I" is presumed and then this "I" sets itself on a trajectory to become more loving. One seeks to, in the words of Christ, "Love God with all of your heart, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself."

And these two ways would seem to be very different from each other.

Only are they?

***

To love in this way that Jesus points to is itself knowledge and to live "devoid of 'I'" in the way that Ramana Maharshi mentions in Upadesha Saram (The Essence of Instruction) is itself love.

In the absence of "I" there is no one to think or do anything. There is only the thinking and action of God beyond either description or denial.

Papaji (Sri H.W.L. Poonja) used to all the time say, "I only want one instant."

This is because it only takes one instant to recognize the you that you already are.

And if you seemingly fall out of yourself and back into the character (which isn't even here)--this is no problem as it only happens in imagination, and so it can not stain or blemish the ever-shining fact of your own being-awareness.

You can look into the mirage of it all and in that very looking you can laugh. You are only ever this simple looking.

There is nothing to love in the world. As an object the world does not exist.

There is only a strangely soft orb called earth turning in space and covered with innumerable things and organisms. All shining out as a play within undifferentiated being-awareness. And happening spontaneously and for no one.

What is there to love when there is no one to "do" the loving?

And yet, and yet--love is!

***

Negation of the world is only to disentangle a pretending character. This character "swallows" it"self". And in that "swallowing" a world shines out in wonder and in love.

***

Nothing ever happens. So this, this has never happened before: the shining out of aliveness as a person, as all people, as a world and everywhere.

No one loves the world. And everyone loves the world and is the world. The world is the plain shining out--the expression of love itself.

The entire spiritual journey can be reduced to a single question which is, "How do I get here?"

It is a seemingly paradoxical question. And it is either useless or useful for you depending on how you are taking yourself as you read these words.

If you are taking yourself to be someone (and even no one is someone) then you can have a look to this basic sense of "I am". This sense of "I am" always seems to be "in" something. And what it is "in" constantly changes.

"I am" may seem to be "in" the body one moment and then "in" the mind or emotions the next moment (and not that there is any such THING as time). So when you seem to be "in" it is because you seem to be in the first place. And when you seem to be, this is the sense of "I am". And this implies the question, "Who am I?"

Thursday, August 16, 2007

"No one is ever away from the Self and therefore everyone is in fact Self-realized; only--and this is the great mystery--people do not know this and want to realize the Self. Realization consists only in getting rid of the false idea that one is not realized."

--Sri Ramana Maharshi

***

What you are is being-awareness. Plain and simple aliveness. This is the Self and this, as explained by Bhagavan in the quote above, is already accomplished and always the case.

It is only a pretending character who wants to get away from this and to that. There is actually no from this and no to that. There is only right here. And in this here there is no need to arrive any"where".

***

As a result of the fundamental assumption "I am" there is a play of "I am this." "I am this body." "I am this name." "I am this role that I am playing of father, mother, brother, sister, enemy, friend," and so on.

The simplest way of "return" to the natural state is to look for the "I am" that always comes before any particular thoughts of who, or what, or where this "I am" is.

And once this "I am" has be separated out from all objects, the "I am" is--in an instant--seen to be nothing at all.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

You can not grasp your own hand. You can not kick your own foot. You can not bite your own teeth. You can not see your own eyes.

AND you can not attain to the you that you already are.

***

The one who wishes to discover or attain it"self" is not you. That one is only a pretending character. A play that is happening in you.

It can not be gotten rid of--which of course is no dilemma.

This character is all at once and quite naturally laughable when it is seen for what it is: a mirage of a barren and stoney desert within the lush and beautiful oasis of your own natural being. There is literally no findable thing, no actual someone to give up or rid oneself of--as this pretending character has no basis in reality.

***

Only have a look right here and now and see right through this character, this allegedly separate one.

That seeing through will be a laugh. That seeing through will be a burst of joyful tears. That seeing through will be sound and fury with out boundaries. That seeing through will be a crashing into great silence.

And in it the whole of existence will be shining out in the plainest way. Plain and simple. Easy and clear. Just like it is already and always shining out.

What is shining out of your eyes? What is feeling with your fingers? What is hearing with your ears? What is smelling with your nose? What is tasting with your tongue? What is thinking thoughts with your brain? Isn't it aliveness? Isn't it being-awareness? Isn't it you?

You have eyes, fingers, ears, a nose, a tongue, and a brain. Yet you are not any of these. They are only aspects of the person that you are. Yet this person is also not you. This person is only a vehicle of you.

Any knowing character depends upon knowingness shining out through the mind.

Any assumption of "I am" is an assumption made outside of your body and mind or any thing that is arising. "I am" pretends to entangle with some arisings. Say "I am" is like saying wave. For whom is there either wave or ocean?

Every arising, every thing is always spontaneously unentangled.

Your body is already free of "I am". You mind is already free of "I am".

If you doubt this only look now. You can not presently locate "I am" within your body. You can not presently locate "I am" within your mind. "I am" is merely an imaginary line dividing wave from ocean. Where does a waves end? Where does the ocean begin?

You can not presently locate "I am" within your heart even as your heart it is feeling and feeling and feeling.

Your knowing self is a pure fiction and when this fiction is seen in this and every moment to be fiction no difference is found between atman (pure awareness as a human being) and brahman (pure awareness as infinity). All is this non-difference. All is not-two.

Nor are you a feeler.

The not-two that comes with seeing the absence of the doer or knower is still something. And there is not even this something. There is neither "I" nor "other-than-I". Neither duality nor nonduality. Neither bondage nor freedom.

***

There is no world other than this world that is arising now. There is no person other than this person right here. There is no awareness other than this very awareness shining out as a person with eyes reading these words right now.

You have never made the faintest sound because every sound is only the sounding out of you within you. Any ear that would hear your would-be sound is itself more of the same sounding out of the you that you already are.

Listen now.

Do you hearing any sound outside of your hearing?

There is no sound ever heard and there is no hearer of sounds. There is only this ever-present sounding, only this ever-present hearing and only this ever-present now of you.

This you is pure being-awareness. It is absolute aliveness. Within IT every thing that is arising is simply an arising.

Nothing gets you to back to you (as you have never for even a fraction of a moment been way from yourself) AND nothing can block, keep or hold you away from you.

No separate, individual character exists other than a pretending character. And if that pretending character is playing out of being-awareness of you then even that, regardless of how that character may seem or feel unto itself, can not be other than the you that you already are.

You are not your body. Not your eyes. Not your tongue. Not your fingers or your toes. Not your ears. Not your nostrils as breath is drawing into them. Not your skin or your muscles or your bones.

You are not your heart.

You are not your brain or your mind. You are not the thoughts that you have in your mind. Neither are you your sensations or your emotions or your psychic knowing.

You are the knowing-ness which is without shape or form or beginning or ending. And the knowing-ness contains all arisings. All arisings. Arising are the simply the plain shining out of the you that you already are.

Meetings on Nonduality

"The pure truth of the Atman, which is buried under Maya and the effects of Maya, can be reached by meditation, contemplation and other spiritual disciplines such as a knower of Brahman may prescribe--but never by subtle arguments."

--Vivekachudamani

Nathan & Jamie

"The person without discrimination is like a frog in a well; just as the frog in the well does not know anything either of good or of bad and so dies in its ignorance in the well itself, in the same way human beings, vainly born in Brahmanda do not know either good or bad regarding themselves and are born only to die in ignorance."

--Tripura Rahasya

"Realization takes time to steady itself. The Self is certainly within the direct experience of everyone but not in the way people imagine. One can only say that it is as it is. Just as incantations or other devices can prevent fire from burning a man when otherwise it would do so, so vasanas (inherent tendencies impelling one to desire one thing and shun another) can veil the Self when otherwise it would be apparent. Realization takes time to steady itself. Spasmodic Realization is not enough to prevent re-birth, but it can not become permanent as long as there are vasanas."